You seem to have a very narrow scope of the idea of "hunting grounds".Originally Posted by Assassin
Heh, since you're reminded me now, i mite as well give my 2 cents on the whole hunting issue.
The way i see it, the best way to control the rampant gun violence would be to get rid of guns all together and only allow police/military personal (and the occasional security guard or whatever) to carry them. This wont be a problem for hunters, if -rather then buying/owning guns or hunting rifles- hunters were issued the guns on location.
For example, set up a shop run by the regional/federal hunting authority near the hunting grounds where, instead of buying beer, the hunters would recieve guns. The only thing the hunters need is a valid hunting liscence, and the on-location shop provides then gun (free of charge ofcourse) and a case or two of ammo (or however much is a reasonable amount for a hunting trip). Any additional ammo could be bought at the shop, and the guns/ammo returned once the trip is over.
That way, hunters have thier fun, the catostrophic deer over population issue () is solved, and the only guns in the city are the ones used to protect the citizens.
And before people start poking holes in the theory, keep in mind im not submitting it for official approval or anything. Its just a very basic premise of a possible solution.
Despite our crisscrossed American roads and patchworks of fields and pervasive cities, there's a LOT of open country, a lot of forest that's either not in good location (too far from cities, too far from resources) or not geographically good for development (too boggy, too steeply graded) The Fermilab example is an isolated exception. The rule is that hunters go out into the country, into places that there's no other people for miles around, and hunt there.
IE: this idea is unconscionably ignorant
While I'm on the topic of unconscionable ignorance...
If you think the reasons for the second amendment have gone away (or even CAN go away) you don't understand why the second amendment is second only to the first.
There are tons of compelling arguments in favor of the second amendment, and in favor of concealed carry, which is why nearly every state in the country has a CCW law. I'm not even going to begin to go into them, but if you want I can send you the episode of Penn & Teller's "Bullshit" that covers the core of it pretty well. It'd be season 3 episode 9, if you're interested.
Regardless, the genie is out of the bottle and you're never going to get it back in there -- guns exist, and aren't particularly difficult to improvise or import. The way I see it, there are two possibilities. I call these "Surveillance society" versus "Acceptable Risk society".
"Acceptable risk" is where we accept and attempt to rationally mitigate those risks which are significant, and accept that we will never, ever, under any circumstances be 100% safe from everything. EVER. You have to draw a line, and say "these risks are significant" versus "these risks are insignificant". Then you have to look at those significant and insignificant risks and further divide them into "these risks are mitigable" versus "these risks are not". Basically, propose a reasonable mitigation path to the risk. Then see if the mitigation path actually works. Then determine an associated cost for it, and compare the cost of implementing it and the benefit you get from that implementation. If the benefits outweigh the costs, do it. If the costs outweigh the benefits, don't. If the problem is insignificant or if no mitigation path can be found in which the benefits outweigh the costs, then simply call it an acceptable risk and move on.
The alternative is to outlaw guns everywhere and universally enforce it. This means setting up very tightly controlled borders, searching every person and every car and every truck and every shipping crate and every plane that comes into or moves around inside the country, and basically invading the privacy of everyone in order to find those few people who carry guns illegally. Because to stop a single motivated, well-planned "lone gunman" type, you're going to have to do that. Every person that walks onto the campus is going to have to be searched by a police officer. Every time. From every direction. And at every other public place you want to protect. Literally a police officer on every street corner, and not just making their presence known, but patting down every little old lady looking for her .22 pistol. Moreover, this means a thorough search of every home, every hiding place looking for every firearm in every household. The guns would have to not only no longer be bought, sold or carried, they'd have to no longer exist.
Take your pick. As a man with a family history of heart disease, or even if I weren't, I'm more likely to die of a heart attack than a gunshot wound. I find the very unlikely incident of a mass shooting to be an acceptable risk. Further, I find the possession of privately owned firearms by the law-abiding citizens around me to be good mitigation of that risk and any risk of violent crime: it costs me nothing, it costs the people around me very little, and it is statistically significant as a preventer of violent crime in general.
But, whatever works for you I guess.
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